if it's you and me forever
by glitters and gold
Summary: For as long as she can remember, Piper has had the ability to see the strings running from person to person, tying them together. What's less simple is trying to find the person at the other end of her own string... or just trying to see her string in general. :: soulmate au, and the red string of fate.


this is about three times as long as i intended it to be and i don't know what happened.

* * *

—

Piper is fifteen when she first sees the string on her own finger. It's a deep royal purple, and leads all the way out the door and down the hall and across the parking lot. She never gets the chance to follow it, because it's gone by the end of the day. She puts it out of her mind, because everyone else seems very content to live their lives without paying any mind to the strings, so Piper isn't all that worried about following her own.

The next day, she transfers into the Wilderness School.

—

Piper has been able to see the strings as long as she can remember, and she learned a long time ago that she should keep it to herself. Nobody else can see them and nobody believes that _she_ can see them, and after a while, Piper stops caring about them. As far as she can tell, it really doesn't mean anything. Every once in a while she'll see a couple tied together with the string, which at least lets her know that the string leads to another _person,_ but as far as she can tell, it doesn't really matter all that much.

Piper's grandparents have the string. Theirs is orange, and it hangs in the air between them at all times, and tightens when they get close together, like a rubber band pulled taut. When she's six, Piper asks about it, but Grandpa Tom just smiles like they're sharing a personal secret and tells her that one day, if she's lucky, she'll understand. That same year, the string on Grandma's finger fades from bright orange to soft yellow to ashy gray, and Piper can see it follow her all the way into the ground. Grandpa Tom's string stays bright orange, but after that it rests like a wedding band on his finger, without trailing to Grandma's body. Piper wonders what's the use of wearing _two_ wedding bands, but when she asks, Grandpa Tom just pulls the gold band off his finger and holds it up.

"A circle, Pipes," he says, as though she's supposed to understand. "No beginning and no end. It represents completeness. Two different people coming together to make a greater whole. It means a life well lived, even after till death do us part."

Piper doesn't think Grandpa Tom can see the strings and she's pretty sure he was talking about his wedding ring anyway, but it's the best explanation she's gotten all the same. As near as she can figure, the strings are supposed to lead to someone particularly special, but they aren't a guarantee that you'll ever find them. Her father doesn't have one and neither does she, and she finds that this is actually rather common. Sometimes she'll see couples with no strings, or with their strings leading in opposite directions. Sometimes she'll see people with more than one string. The strings aren't always there; sometimes they appear, sometimes they vanish. Some people have many strings, all different colors, and some have none at all. Once, Piper witnesses an engagement, and as the man slides the ring onto his new fiancé's finger, the string materializes between them, tightening as they cry and kiss. Every so often, she'll see the string resting like a band on someone's finger, and feels a burst of sadness for them. She's not sure if it's better to find your person and lose them, or to never have a string at all. As she grows, she's not sure which to hope for.

—

Piper doesn't get a glimpse of what the strings mean, what they _really_ mean, until she gets to Camp Half-Blood.

Funnily enough, she's not spooked to learn that the Greek gods are real. She's been having vivid nightmares that have given her he sneaking suspicion for a while now, and anyway, she grew up believing in magic strings and hearing legends from her father and grandfather. Piper is a pretty spiritual person as it is and takes it in stride. She's got other things to worry about anyway, like a boyfriend who doesn't know her name and a father that she can't locate.

It's not until long after the quest that Piper finds enough peace to think about the strings again. She asks Annabeth about them because Annabeth knows everything, but Annabeth only holds up her hands in confusion.

"What string?"

"Um," Piper says, staring at Annabeth's hands. She's got three strings. One bright green one that goes to gods only know where, an electric blue band, and a navy one that goes in the opposite direction of the green one. Piper knows that the navy one matches Thalia Grace's, and she'd level a pretty good guess that the green one goes to Percy, wherever he is. She's not sure about the bright blue band, but it's identical to the one that Thalia wears. "Never mind, I guess."

It's something she'll never fully get used to—realizing that she can see a whole network that is invisible to everyone else. She'd thought that maybe the strings were part of the Mist, but demigods seem just as lost as the mortals. Even her siblings—the children of Love Herself—are mystified when she mentions it.

Drew, in a rare burst of docility, says, "You know, Silena used to talk about them, too. She never explained, but they meant something to her."

But her siblings just bow their heads in reverence like they always do when Silena's name comes up, and Piper doesn't feel right asking for any more details on the matter.

It's Rachel Elizabeth Dare who finally explains it, and this time, Piper doesn't even have to ask.

"Can you see your own?" Rachel asks, sliding up next to her.

Somehow, Piper knows what she's talking about. She holds up her hands to the light, searching.

"No," she admits.

Rachel takes one of Piper's hands and runs her finger over something invisible. "You have a lot, you know."

"I actually did see one, once," Piper admits. "But only for about an hour."

"Fate is weird that way," Rachel shrugs. "I can see all of them, all the time. Sometimes, I can even tell where they're leading. It's part of the whole clear-sighted-mortal thing. I could tell that you were looking at them too, sometimes. That's how I knew that you could see them."

"So, it _is_ something to do with the Mist, then?" Piper asks, turning to face her.

Rachel smiles one of her Oracle smiles—the ones that tell you she knows something you don't. "Yes. One of those Mists that fool even demigods, even gods."

"Like my fake memories of Jason, you mean?" Piper doesn't mean for it to come out quite as bitter as it does. Funny; she hadn't even realized she was still upset about that.

Fortunately, Rachel doesn't comment on it. She just shakes her head. "No, that only worked because you didn't know what the Mist was yet. I'm talking about the kind of Mist in the Labyrinth, or the Mist that's kept the Greeks and Romans apart for centuries. Or even the kind that makes magical stuff look modern to you guys—like how the Fleece looks like a winter jacket if you take it outside camp. That kind of stuff doesn't fool me."

"Oh," Piper mutters. "So… I can see through the Mist better than other demigods?"

"No, I don't think so," Rachel says cheerily. "I just think you know how people work, Piper McLean. You can read them, and you can see how they're tied to each other. I mean, I don't even think you need the strings to be able to see who's a good match and who isn't."

"So it is about soulmates, then?" Piper asks. It's been her theory for a few years now, but it's not as though she can go about verifying it.

"Who can really say? Maybe," Rachel shrugs. "My theory is that it's more about Fate than true love. You know how the Fates supposedly weave a tapestry that decides the future of the world?"

Piper nods.

"Well, I think the string is a sign that in that tapestry, your fates are connected. I mean, we could get really philosophical about the Butterfly Effect and how _everything_ is connected or whatever, but I think the string only shows up if someone is inexorably tied to your future. If you literally couldn't be who you are without them. Some of them are permanent, and I think _those_ people are fixed points in time, maybe soulmates, or maybe just people you're stuck with. But for the most part, I think you make them yourself, by choosing who you want in your life _._ "

"That's interesting," Piper says, nodding. It's by far the most convincing idea she's ever had, at any rate. She frowns at Rachel's own string. It sits on her right index finger, and she has only one. It's green, but not the same green as Annabeth's—Annabeth's looks like a lime colored glow stick. Rachel's is solid, forest green, but when she gets a prophecy, it glows the same color as the Oracle's smoke. "But how come I can't see my own?"

Rachel shrugs again. "I'm also the Oracle. Maybe I'm seeing strings that aren't actually there yet—strings that _will_ be there one day, as long as you keep walking down the path that you're on."

Piper studies her own hands, imaging the colors that might show up someday.

"Did you ever find yours?"

Rachel smiles. "On a field trip to the Hoover Dam. If not for that day, I wouldn't be the Oracle."

"What was it like?" Piper breathes. She can't imagine seeing the string on her finger leading right to someone else's finger, and wondering why, out of everyone, them.

"I didn't understand, at first," Rachel says. "But the more I followed it, the more it felt like coming home, until finally, I understood that I was meant to be here."

The words resonate with Piper. Because gods, if there's anything in the world she wants, it's that.

She begins paying more attention to the strings, after that. She's happy they're color coded, because it means she can make the connections even if the pair isn't in the same proximity. She makes her own theories about the strings—they don't seem to run in families, which she supposes would be kind of redundant. They're companions you choose for yourself; it's less about the family you're born into and more about going out and making your own relationships. Most of them are platonic, and she supposes that some people have one that leads to their divine match or whatever, but she has a feeling that the majority of people never find it, and that's okay. She also has a feeling that they're not fixed points—that your own choices play a role in it, that when you decide you want someone to be a part of your life, the Fates evaluate whether or not the bond is strong enough to warrant a thread. And Rachel is right—in a way, everyone is connected, and if you looked on a large enough scale, you could find that everyone you meet has a role, even a miniscule one, in shaping you, whether it's to help you realize that you hate broccoli or to make you want a pair of shoes or show you that you're usually very rude to strangers or give you a really good haircut. But the strings are stronger than just a connection, even stronger than just a friendship or a romance, and as Piper can see, sometimes they don't show up until years into a relationship. All in all, she concludes that its less about destiny and more about choices, and that maybe, Fate operates that way all the time.

But Piper still can't see her own strings. She's not sure how she should feel about that.

—

Piper lets Jason, Leo, and Annabeth argue about which way to take the Argo II, even though Piper's about 90 percent certain that she could do a better job than all of them just by following the strings. She might not know anything about geography and where Camp Jupiter is hidden, but she knows that Jason's string and Annabeth's string are going in the same direction and leading to the same location. She can tell they're getting close because they both get brighter by the second. Jason's is usually a dusky purplish red, like wine, but it's crimson at the moment. Meanwhile, Annabeth's is always bright, but it's currently glowing so vividly that it hurts to look at.

Annabeth's is predictable, but it's Jason's that she's concerned about, especially when she realizes that it leads straight to Reyna. And of course, she knows that most of the strings are platonic and she knows that Jason and Reyna where never together and she knows that Reyna had a huge part in Jason's life and she can't begrudge him for that because it's unhealthy and unfair, but she can't help but feel acutely insecure about it anyway. Her own finger is still quite empty, and when she looks at the crimson thread running between Jason and Reyna, and the green cord tied between Percy and Annabeth, she feels sick.

There is a web of color that runs among the group, and while Percy and Hazel and Frank are explaining their end of things, Piper finds herself staring, trying to connect them all. Percy's hands are a mess of color, and it's like nothing she's ever seen before. Four of his strings are obvious: the green one that goes to Annabeth, the yellow to Frank, the pink to Hazel, and a blue to Tyson. There's another green one that Piper suspects runs to Rachel, but there are at least four more that go in all different directions. Hazel and Frank share an orange one, and Hazel has a neat yellow band and a midnight blue string that trails along to somewhere else. And then there's Jason and Leo's blue one, that Piper had seen materialize herself, with no real buildup and no real reason. And, of course, there's Jason and Reyna's string, which has faded back to its usual color, but that doesn't make Piper feel any better. Piper is the only one with bare hands, and she's really not sure how to take that.

It's not until long after they flee Camp Jupiter on the Argo II that Piper realizes that all seven of them are here. She feels like that's monumental—shouldn't she get a string to someone from that? Not just Jason, but Leo, or even Annabeth? She stares at her hands as she falls asleep that night, wondering if something's wrong with her. She dreams about the purple string she glanced just that once, and wonders why it's taking its sweet time.

—

Annabeth and Frank get a silver string randomly one day, which Piper doesn't understand until much later, when Annabeth explains where she'd gotten the idea for Arachne's trap. She discovers that Hazel and Percy both have a string that runs to Nico. Percy and Annabeth fall into Tartarus, which is devastating, but Piper imagines the bright green string glowing enough to illuminate some of the darkness, and it gives her hope.

Reyna and Annabeth gain a string, probably during that time when Reyna leaves the Legion to fight her way to the Argo II. Leo and Hazel come back with a string when they make it out of the House of Hades, which was a long time coming, she supposes.

She stares at their interlocking fingers before they shadow travel out of the House of Hades, all connected to each other in some way: Percy and Annabeth, Annabeth and Frank, Frank and Hazel, Hazel and Nico, Nico and Percy, Percy and Hazel, Hazel and Leo, Leo and Jason. It's a web, a network, and it's breathtaking—she only wishes she was part of it.

—

Piper's first string is hot pink.

Not the purple one that she'd seen almost a year ago now, and, very clearly _not_ to Jason.

But she can't begrudge the string, because it's beautiful and significant and it runs to Annabeth, who definitely deserves one of Piper's strings because Annabeth taught her how to be the person she is today. Honestly, she's not sure why it took so long, but the moment finally comes on their first solo quest together when Piper puts their foreheads together and gives Annabeth something back in return for everything Annabeth has given Piper.

After that, the strings come rapidly, like she's unlocked something inside herself. And, she supposes, she has. This whole time she's been letting the prophecy carry her along, but that's not the way it was meant to go. She's been with these people because she was supposed to be, not because she really sat down and looked at her options and made a decision that this was where she _wanted_ to be. That she was with these people because she loves them, not because there was a prophecy made about them before they were even born.

She starts to see the different branches of her fate—not in the literal sense, not the way Rachel can, but in the sense that she learns that she does have options. That even if the prophecy is a fixed point in time, the way she responds to it still reflects the final outcome. That prophecies are vague because the way they are fulfilled can vary, depending on the endless threads of choices that are woven into time. That the roots of who you are don't dictate the person you'll become. That your existence matters, whether it be grand or small, because your choices affect other's choices which somewhere down the road will change the world, like a snowball effect.

And Piper feels like singing from how wonderful it feels. Her and Leo's string is red, and her and Hazel's string is lavender, and now she has _three._ None of them go to Jason though, which makes her more apprehensive the longer it goes on.

It just doesn't make sense. She gets it now. They're both capable of making them. But their own never appears. Piper finds herself staring at the empty space on her finger, distressed and confused. What are they doing wrong? By all accounts, they should have a string—is it some kind of sign? Is it not showing up for a reason?

She's able to put it out of her mind for a little while. They have other things to deal with, after all. Leo dies—or well, for a little while, at any rate. All six of them have a band where his string used to be, but gradually, Piper can see the strings growing, stretching out, all in the same direction, to wherever he's gone off to. She thinks about following it, and one night, when she's half-mad with grief she tries, but she stays up all night trying to get to the other end and never feels a tug. And really, Piper knows in her heart that Leo doesn't want to be found. And that hurts, it really does, because it isn't fair and it's not right and friends are supposed to act like that. But then there are days when Piper feels a peace about it, although she doesn't come to full acceptance until years later. She doesn't have much of a choice—she could be angry about it until the day Leo deigns to come back (which, admittedly, seems like a viable option on the bad days) or she could admit that there are some things she doesn't understand that Leo will have to explore on his own, as terrible as that feels.

The aftermath isn't all bad. She and Reyna get their own string. She has the privilege of watching Nico and Reyna get a string, when she proudly embraces him in front of everyone. Jason and Nico get a string as well, the day that Nico agrees to stay at Camp Half-Blood. She also gets to see Percy and Rachel's string pulled short and taut between them when Rachel tackles him sometime after Gaea's defeat, and discovers another person at the end of one of Percy's strings in the form of Grover Underwood. Frank and Reyna gain a string on the day they leave for Camp Jupiter, and Piper smiles as she watches her strings to Reyna, Hazel, and Frank stretch across the country, knowing firmly that they will find their way back to each other, because they're tied together even when they are apart.

Jason kisses her on the roof of Cabin One, but Piper's finger remains blank.

—

It takes a long time to get back on their feet. It's like a funeral—there are the wakes, and the service, and a period of everyone bonding together in sympathy. And then, bit by bit, people move on, people leave, and Piper is left with a gaping hole in her sternum that she needs to patch up.

Hazel, Frank and Reyna forget to keep in touch as the months wear on, and Piper finds herself struggling to swallow the knowledge that their lives will be moving on without her. Percy and Annabeth leave for high school. And Leo still hasn't returned. Piper doesn't cry for him every day anymore; it drops to once a week, and then she cries even harder once she realizes that she's beginning to move on, that she's beginning to forget.

One day, Piper decides it's a good idea to go visit her father again, maybe try and regain some sense of normality. It's not a good idea. He has no idea the things that she's been through and she's not yet prepared to tell him, and she feels the distance between them sharper than she ever has before. She planned to stay a week but leaves after two days, sobbing the entire plane ride back to Long Island.

She and Jason start to fight, because Piper feels like she's swallowing glass all the time nowadays and she just doesn't have the patience to speak as softly as she used to. One day, she wakes up and realizes that she's lost her charmspeak—she doesn't have the energy to convince someone to give her a bite of their breakfast, much less put Mother Earth back to sleep. She stops making new friends, and forgets to talk to the old ones. Jason leaves to visit Camp Jupiter, and Piper doesn't go, because new places aggravate her nightmares and Camp Jupiter just isn't home to her, and she could really use a bit of home.

Her strings look duller than they used to. At first she thinks it's just her imagination, because everything looks duller than it used to now, but after a while, it becomes obvious that they're stale and faded. The realization slams her in the chest, and she calls Annabeth immediately.

"I was going to invite you for Thanksgiving," Annabeth says. "And then I thought that that might be offensive and I wasn't sure. But I miss you! And Percy's mom is seriously amazing—she's a really good cook and she'll love you like one of her own, I promise."

Piper feels a tug on the hot pink string, and smiles.

It's the best decision Piper has made in a long time. Percy is too skinny and Annabeth jumps at loud noises and all three of them have dark circles under their eyes, but it's okay. Sally really is wonderful and Paul is really good at keeping up light conversation while respecting boundaries, and it's okay. She feels the cavern in her sternum start to soften at the edges, just the slightest bit.

And eventually, it gets easier. Piper still cries a lot and has trouble sleeping and sometimes she doesn't have the energy to get out of bed. But it gets easier. She gets an Iris Message from Hazel, who tugs Frank into view, who tugs Reyna into view. Piper feels an almost painful tug on Reyna's and Hazel's strings, enough that she could fly across the country right now and give them both a hug, but eventually it ends and the feeling subsides.

Jason comes back for the month of December, but their reunion doesn't feel like it's supposed to. They've developed different coping strategies that don't mesh well. He makes her angry for no reason at all, and even angrier for other reasons. Half of his strings have vanished—Piper can't see the one that's supposed to go to Reyna or Percy anymore. And he never developed one that should go to Hazel or Frank, even though he'd just spent the last month with them, and that infuriates Piper even though she can't articulate why. He never even bothered to develop one that goes to her—and even though that's as much her fault as it is his, she blames him for it anyway. They get under each other's skin and in each other's way and when he leaves again, it feels something very much like relief.

It's just all wrong. He's not supposed to leave. He's supposed to be with _her,_ and she's supposed to want that. She doesn't understand it, but she knows that it's all wrong.

—

Piper's life goes in cycles. It gets easier, and it gets harder, and it gets easier again. It's never normal, but sometimes it's okay, and Piper is willing to take what she can get, at this point.

Percy drops out of school in January and comes to join her at Camp Half-Blood, which is, surprisingly, nicer than she expected. Unlike her and Jason, they've adopted mostly the same coping strategies, and while they may not be healthy, they're compatible. They don't talk about it, but there's something nice about just being with someone who _gets it_ that transcends words.

One night, she wakes up with a new white string on her finger, tugging insistently. She follows the tug to the beach, and finds Percy at the end of it.

"What's up?" she says quietly.

"Can't sleep," he answers.

"Just out of curiosity," she says mildly, "Exactly how long have you not been able to sleep?"

"Awhile," he says, which really means, _long enough that it would upset you if I told the truth._

Piper just sighs and scoots a little closer, and he accepts her support gratefully. She thinks about saying something like, _you can't keep doing this, you know,_ but doesn't bother, because of course he knows. So instead she just keeps quiet and stays there, watching the glow of the white string reflected in the sand and in the waves.

Annabeth stops by when she can, which isn't often, since she's working overtime to compensate for all the gaps in her education. One day she shows up a sobbing, shaking wreck, and Piper and Percy agree that she is not allowed to leave her bed until she gets at least six hours of sleep.

"You need to let yourself take a break," Piper tells her.

Annabeth's lip trembles. "This is the only thing I know how to do. If I stop, I don't think I'll ever get started again."

And Piper can respect that, even if she can't understand it. She exchanges a look with Percy over Annabeth's head, and knows that they've both come to a complete stop and weren't planning on getting started again anytime soon. That's a bit concerning to face head on, so she ignores it.

Piper learns that helping people is the best way to help herself. She starts building relationships with her siblings. She tests out theories that Lacy says are supposed to be therapeutic. She helps set Mitchell up with one of the boys from Athena that he's been crushing on since forever. One day when she's on the floor of the cabin cracking up with one of her sisters because she absolutely cannot paint her nails without messing them up, Drew huffs, sits down, and starts doing them for her. She won't hear a word about it later, but it's enough for Piper. She checks in on Percy and Annabeth, makes sure they're sleeping and eating; offers herself as a confidant to talk to. She even helps with constructing some new cabins and monuments to represent some miscellaneous gods—it used to be Annabeth's job, but nobody has the heart to ask her for help anymore, so Nyssa takes over with whoever else wants to help. She helps mediate counselor meetings and spends time with her siblings thinking up new games to play at camp, she offers her services to counselors who don't want to do their weekly chores, plays pranks and makes Capture the Flag alliances, and, on those good days when she's feeling up to it, trains.

A few times, Piper feels the urge to tell someone about the strings, but in the end, she decides against it. The whole point is that it's based on your own choices, and she would never want to talk someone out of stepping up and making those choices. Relationships are always in your own hands anyway; at the end of the day, the strings are really just strings.

Some of Piper's own strings suffer. Leo's string stays bright on her finger, and Piper is happy to keep it as a memorial of his sacrifice for her, but there's really no use in it being a string, as he doesn't appear to be coming back and she's beginning to accept that. She keeps Percy's and Annabeth's because they're here with her, but most days, she doesn't see Reyna's or Hazel's, and for whatever reason, she and Jason and Frank never even got one in the first place. Sometimes, when they call her or when she thinks of them, Reyna's will flare up or Hazel's will tug, but for the most part, Piper sticks with three.

At the heart of it is this: most of their relationships aren't based on anything other than being thrown together, and now that they aren't anymore, they're all experiencing the fall out. Hazel and Frank break up after Christmas. Annabeth's strings with Hazel and Frank dull until she can't see them anymore. Even Percy, who is the best at managing strings out of anyone Piper knows, loses Jason's, Hazel's, Frank's, and eventually, Nico's. Nico takes off again, going gods only know where. He's a drifter; it's in his nature, and although he doesn't have that sunken, hollow look to him anymore, no amount of strings are going to keep him in one place for all that long. Jason goes back and forth, and after a while, Piper realizes that he's running. Even when they're on the same coast, Piper feels like she can feel every mile of distance between them, every inch of the string that still isn't there, and aches, and aches, and aches. She loves him, and he loves her, and yet, on the bad days, and sometimes, even on the good days, Piper wonders if that is enough.

—

All of the sudden, it's been a year.

For all that it's not perfect, it eventually becomes okay. Piper starts to have less bad days and more good ones. She's able to talk with her father—not about anything of real substance, and there's lots of editing and modifying and even a bit of lying, but she's able to be near him without hurting quite so much. She still avoids it, but she is brave enough to _do_ it, which helps her heal even if it can't mend their relationship. She knows the ins and outs of camp like the back of her hand. She watches new campers come and the camp expand. Greeks and Romans start regularly traveling between camps, until it sort of becomes universally understood that Camp Jupiter is for studying and training and Camp Half-Blood is all about taking and break and finding a place to belong. Both are necessary and both are good, and Piper likes it this way—although she never does bring herself to travel to Camp Jupiter herself. Reyna and Frank come on "diplomatic missions," and mess around with her, and it feels good to be with them, outside the threat of wars and prophecies. Hazel starts joining the "diplomatic missions" more and more frequently, and it makes Piper happy to see her and Frank being friends again.

"I like it better this way," Hazel tells her, nodding firmly, like that settles everything. Her and Frank's string is still intact, and so Piper has a feeling that Hazel knows what she's talking about, has carefully considered the role she wants to play in his life and the extent she wants him in hers.

One day, when Piper gets up the courage, she asks Reyna, "How's Venus been treating you these days?"

Reyna smiles, and the expression is peaceful. "Well I'm not sure what Venus has to do with it, but I'm finally beginning to understand what healing your heart feels like, so I think we're all good on that front."

"Me too," Piper sobs, and then laughs. "I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy for _us."_

And then they're both laughing and crying and hugging and it's wonderful, because they're okay, they're okay, they're going to be okay.

Jason also comes, and for a while, that's good, too, but they still start to irritate each other if they're together for longer than a week. Piper gets angry when he leaves, too. She wishes that he would stay in place. She also wishes that she could bring herself to go with him. She knows he's trying to run from something, as though flitting from coast to coast is going to help him bury his problems in the ground. She also knows that it's not personal, but she takes it personally anyway. He tries to convince her to come and every time she rebuffs him he takes it personally, and it's really only a matter of time before it blows up.

"That's my _home,_ Piper," he says tightly.

"And this is mine!" she says back, just as loudly.

"And I'm here, aren't I? To be with you! To share this part of your life with you!"

"I thought Camp Half-Blood was part of your own life as well," she whispers.

Jason's jaw works in a way that Piper is familiar with, but has rarely seen in one of their own fights—a way that means he's well and truly angry.

"Of course it is, Piper," he says frostily. "And it's part of _our_ life, together. And Camp Jupiter is also a part of me, but you refuse on seeing that part."

"I told you!" She says, feeling tears beginning to prick. "I'm not ready for that! I've never had a home; I'm not ready for two!"

He softens immediately and apologizes. He tells her that's okay, that he understands, but she doesn't believe him and doesn't feel much better. At the end of the week, he leaves again. She's positive he wants to ask her to come, and all she wants is to ask him to stay, but all that passes between them is silence.

It's all wrong. It's not supposed to be so easy for him to leave. It shouldn't be so easy for her to watch him go.

—

Next Christmas, Piper plans a party for the Seven and Reyna and Nico and Coach Hedge and his family and whoever else wants to come, as long as those people are all there. Piper thinks of Leo and cries, but only a little bit. Her siblings stick mistletoe everywhere and Hazel kisses everyone who gets stuck under it, insisting that they all need to chill with the PDA for her sake and that forehead kisses are the best kind of kisses anyway. Annabeth and Frank design an amplified version of Capture the Flag just for their group and proceed to beat them all senselessly at it, which isn't fair because they definitely rigged it, but Piper can't tell them so because she's laughing too hard. Coach's baby is a toddler now and Piper attempts to teach her how to braid Reyna's hair, unsuccessfully, but that's okay. At the end of the night, Annabeth announces her acceptance to her college of choice, and Piper could swear her heart will burst from pride. She and Jason are able to be casual and sweet with each other, which definitely boosts her mood; they don't laugh together much anymore, and she'd forgotten how good it could feel.

Piper observes the web of strings running between them, some of them visible for the first time in months, and feels a burst of affection for all of them and how good they are to each other.

She and Jason still don't have one, and Piper is slowly coming to the bitter realization that they probably never will.

—

Jason breaks up with her the day that he enrolls in college in New Rome, and Piper wishes she could say that she's surprised. But Jason is too busy trying to do new things and Piper is too busy trying to restore old things and they can't find a way to meet in the middle.

He does it in person, because Jason is traditional that way, and while she knows that he wants things that she isn't able to give, he still loves her, and she still loves him. She can't bring herself to resent him for it, even if she does do a great deal of venting to her siblings. He kisses her on the forehead and tells her goodbye, and Piper feels a stone drop to the bottom of her stomach, because he isn't coming back, this time.

It's awful. Piper cries a lot and has more bad days than she's had in years. Her weight fluctuates and her siblings coddle her and the campers give her a wide berth. And it's awful.

But, as all things eventually do, it gets better. Manageable, at least. She's learned how to be a person without him, and she's not going to stop that now, even if it hurts. She learns not to call him, and she learns not to expect his calls. She starts consciously regulating her meals. She lets her siblings throw her breakup parties where they watch sad movies and talk shit. She drives up with Percy to visit Annabeth at college for the weekend, and cries the whole time because she knows that weekends are usually the only time they get to spend with each other, but they love her enough that they're willing to bring her into it. She spends the whole night with her head in Annabeth's lap while Annabeth plays with her hair, blubbering about long distance relationships and PTSD and wars and prophecies, and at the end of it all, miraculously feels better. Percy tells her to DJ on the car ride home, and she finds a playlist of old stuff from when they were in middle school that they blast at full volume. Piper even sings, for the first time in a long time.

She keeps living her life, adjusting to the lack of security that comes with long term relationships. It's true that they'd been having problems for some time now, but even in the rough patches, they always had each other to fall back on. That's gone now, and Piper still finds herself grappling for it. There's a learning curve to being alone after being committed for so long, but she _is_ still learning, and life eventually moves on.

Before she knows it, it's been a month, and then six months, and then a year. Being alone starts to feel natural again, because Piper knows how to be alone, and also, because she's _not_ alone. She has her friends and her siblings and her strings. She has parts of herself that don't belong to Jason because they're _hers,_ and they help catch her fall when she's not sure how she's going to pull through. She holds the strings as a lifeline, and when that isn't enough, she has her siblings to clutch her hands and her position at Camp Half-Blood to keep her busy.

One day, Percy comes over to where she's siting on the Big House with a stack of thick books and plops them down on the desk.

"GEDs," he says. "We're gonna do it."

Piper blinks at the stack, and then studies his face. "Okay," she says.

Because really, it's high time she started thinking about the future. She's been avoiding it, skirting around it, not fully ready to face it head on, and Percy's been doing the same thing. And now here they both are, still at Camp Half-Blood with no high-school diplomas and no plans for the future and questionable mental health. But they've both got more energy now, and are able to look over the wealth of all their problems, and so maybe it's time.

It's good to have a project. Piper has always felt more energized when she's working of her own volition—when there's nobody to force her into it. She's proud of her own drive. They make a study schedule and don't stick to it because they're both hopeless with deadlines, but it works for them. They start slow, taking breaks when they need breaks and putting it off when they need to. And, amazingly, they get it done. It takes awhile and it isn't easy, but they get it done, bit by bit.

They grow up. They move on. Piper and Percy both eventually pass, and celebrate in Sally and Paul's house. Percy and Annabeth toss around the idea of heading to New Rome, but decide against it, in the end, and Annabeth announces her plans for New Athens. Piper stays with her dad for the first time in a long time, and it's tentative and strange, but it's okay. She decides to follow Percy to Adelphi—a university half way between Camp Half-Blood and Manhattan, about an hour each way, close enough but still _away_. She keeps living her life, making sure to keep in touch with her friends, and Piper learns that she's going to get through this. Because she's a survivor—it's what she does, and nothing is going to take that away from her.

And after a while, it stops being just _okay,_ and it starts to be _good._ She likes getting out of bed in the mornings. She feels her heart healing every time she laughs. She looks forward to catching up with her friends and making Capture the Flag strategies with her siblings. She gets her charmspeak back, bit by bit. She looks forward to starting college. She's standing on the edge of the precipice overlooking the rest of her life, and for the first time in a long time, maybe for the first time _ever,_ it looks like something worth exploring, worth changing, worth experimenting with and trying new things and _living,_ really, truly _living._

—

College is quite the experience, and Piper loves it. It's been ages since she's been in the mortal world, and she'd forgotten what it was like. It doesn't have the same close knit familiarity as camp, but for what it loses in depth it makes up for in sheer volume. There is always someone new to meet, always different faces around. Strings seem to work differently in the mortal world than they do in Piper's world—rarer, harder to come by, more liable to change. She supposes it's a side effect of not being in life-or-death situations all the time. She makes some mortal friends, and finds that it's nice that they don't know everything about her past—she doesn't have to worry about them accidentally stumbling over one of her very sensitive topics, and they don't tiptoe around her, because they don't know that she saved the world and what that cost her. And she finds that it closes up some wounds that she didn't even realize she had—because it's worth it. Because the mortals are worth it, everything they've built is worth it, because the spirit of Western civilization is _worth it._ She saved the world, and it cost her a lot, but it helped her to gain immeasurably _more._

She studies psychology, and loves it. Because Piper _gets_ people, but she's never been able to explain why. It teaches her how to help others, and it teaches her the mechanics behind what she already knows on an instinctual level. She tests out the party scene, but quickly decides that she's not ready for all of that. A couple people ask her out—she turns both the boys down and goes on a date with the girl. It doesn't go anywhere and in the end they decide to just be friends, but it gives Piper the ability to see that romance could be in her future, even if Jason is not. She makes casual acquaintances with her roommate and her classmates, because she doesn't see how she could really be close to them while keeping so many secrets—honestly, she's not even sure if talking about her mortal parent or her immortal parent would get more attention, so she just keeps it casual and relatively impersonal. It's nice to know that Percy is close by if she ever needs help, although they don't really interact on campus. Every weekend, they leave together—either toward Manhattan to meet up with Annabeth and head to his mother's, or Annabeth will meet them and they'll head over to camp. It's a nice rhythm, and Piper falls into it without a second thought.

Annabeth graduates, and all of their friends come to surprise her—and, shockingly, are able to pull it off. She cries hysterically, but they're _happy_ tears, and it plays a beautiful contrast to all the times that Piper has seen Annabeth cry in pain. And of course, she comes out with glowing recommendations from all her professors, and lands a job with no trouble at all. She and Percy get an apartment together—they'd both kept it quiet, even from her, but she could tell all the same because their string looks brighter than ever, a sure sign that their futures are inextricably tied together now, and really, it just makes sense.

Piper finds herself thinking about how Jason is doing. He must be close to graduating as well, now, and she doesn't even know what his major is, much less what he's planning to do with the rest of his life. And she thinks about Leo, who still hasn't come back. There are some days when Piper can't even see his string anymore, but she knows it's always there, just thinner and fainter than it used to be. She helps Percy and Annabeth move, and she's happy for them, she really is, but she's also sad for herself. She cries that night, a good, solid cry, and feels better afterward. She can still have bad days, without having a bad week, and that makes her feel better, it makes her feel strong. Piper's an expert on emotions by now, anyway, and she understands that sadness is a part of life and it doesn't do her any good to run away from it.

She starts a mural on her dorm wall, filled with pictures of the people she loves. She color codes them to match her strings, and when she feels sad, she picks one to call. It helps; it reminds her that she is never alone, even when things aren't perfect, it reminds her that they are tied together, and that even if they stray from each other, they still share the same roots. Most of all, it helps her to see herself through their eyes. She loves each one of them and they love her, and when she accepts this, she learns how to love _herself._

Piper graduates, and then goes to grad school. She wants to be a psychiatrist, she decides. Which means med school, which means it's possible she's in a little bit over her head, but Piper's good at managing that. She's got much more energy now, and she's confident that she'll be able to manage the workload, because this is what she loves. Her dad is thrilled and pays her tuition without her having to ask and even pays for her to get an apartment nearby her school—and when she absolutely refuses to accept a new car, he just ships one of his over to her to use. Piper's a bit embarrassed by the flagrant spending, but she desperately needs the help, so she can't afford to refuse and is deeply grateful. And school is brutal—really, truly, slam-you-over-the-head-with-a-club brutal, but she gets through it, because gods only know she's been through worse, and she _wants_ this for herself, more than she's ever wanted anything. This is hers—she's not sharing it with anyone, and nobody is doing it for her; it is purely, truly, _hers,_ and that's enough to keep her going even when she feels like a zombie muddling through her overloaded schedule. She still has her strings when she worries that her social life is going down the tubes, and that helps, too.

Sometimes she has to remind herself to refocus on what's really important, and the strings help with that. School is so demanding that sometimes it's easy for Piper to lose sight of why she's doing it. She loves helping people and she hates being unavailable to her friends, and she has to constantly keep reminding herself that she'll be more equipped to help when all of this is done. She doesn't want to get med student syndrome and start reading too much into her friend's mental health, but she's pretty sure that they all should have sought professional help a long time ago. It galvanizes her efforts: half-bloods need to have psychiatrists available to them that they can be honest with, without being misdiagnosed as out of touch with reality. All half-bloods, and especially Piper's friends, need someone to listen and help and prescribe and diagnose without making them censor themselves. Demigods need to be able to talk about abandonment issues that come from having an immortal parent and paranoia that comes from monsters and PTSD that comes from quests and war and traumatic nightmares. It's important, it's pivotal, and it's necessary, and _gods dammit,_ Piper is _going to do it._

She's told all her friends this, so fortunately they've all been awesome about going out of their way to include her without making her feel guilty for being so busy. They tell her they're proud of her, and it makes her chest swell with happiness. She's proud of herself, too, and that feels wonderful as well. And even though the work is plenty, the stasis is nice, comfortable.

And then Leo comes back.

—

Piper almost kills him. She really does. She feels a violent tug on Leo's string, and follows it, leaving her never ending pile of homework behind and everything, and unsurprisingly, finds Leo, freshly landed at Camp Half-Blood.

And Piper almost kills him. She almost loses it. Instead, her whole body stills, eerie calm washing over her nerve endings, and stops in front of him.

"Why," she whispers, shocked by the bitterness in her own voice. It sounds like broken glass, and she can hear every year that she has waited, every tear that she has shed, every sleepless night and every instant of self-loathing, boiled down into one syllable.

Leo apparently hears it too, because he doesn't laugh or crack a joke. "You knew?" he asks instead. "The whole time, you knew?"

"Of course I knew!" Piper snaps, hot and furious, melting away the ice in her veins and filling her to the brim with fury. "And you made me _wait,_ and I couldn't even tell anyone else because how _could_ I tell them and force them to wait, too? You _left,_ and you didn't even let me say goodbye, you didn't even give me any kind of closure because I _knew_ you were still out there and I couldn't move on because it wasn't over yet! You didn't even let me _thank_ you for giving your life for me, and you went off to tour the world with some _fucking girl!"_

She's screaming by the end, and it's a good thing that no one else is near Half-Blood Hill, because she's not ready to share this moment with anyone else.

"Piper, I'm sorry," he says quietly, just short of a whisper, but she's not ready to stop yet.

" _Fuck that!"_ she shrieks. "How dare you? You made Hazel feel your _death,_ and you made her blame herself for lying to us all about the physician's cure! Annabeth still can't forgive herself for not understanding fast enough to prevent it, and Frank and Percy still feel responsible and wish that it had been _them_ instead and Jason—" her voice breaks off and she covers her face with her hands and takes a deep breath, then forges on. "Jason can't accept it, even now. He keeps running, trying to pay penance for your sacrifice because he can't accept that you died for him." She swallows tightly, crying freely now, unable to hold back. "And I. I had to _wait._ I had to watch them fall to pieces and try and put themselves back together again, knowing the _whole time,_ and I had to _wait._

"And you know what the worst part was?" she whispers, after a brief pause. "We grieved. All of us. I had to grieve anyway. We had to go through all that guilt and anger and mourning anyway. And the whole time I just kept wondering— _what did I do wrong? Why wouldn't he come back? How could he not know how hard this is for all of us, how much we miss him?"_

"Piper, I _did_ know—"

"No you didn't," she says coldly. "We failed you. _I_ failed you. And you left to go be with someone else, because you never realized how much we cared, how much _I_ cared, and I can never take that back, I can never make that go away or pretend it didn't happen, or—or—" Piper shakes her head violently, but the tears don't stop.

"Piper," Leo says quietly. "Pipes, please."

She doesn't know what he's asking for but she's not ready to give it. Instead, she just shakes her head.

"This wasn't how I wanted this to go," she says, laughing humorlessly through her tears. "I wanted to look you in the eye and say, _thank you, I'm so sorry, I've missed you so much."_

"I missed you, too," Leo says, and Piper sobs. He pulls her into a hug and she goes without protest, clutching as tight as she can, watching their string curl around their bodies like a promise.

—

It gets better from there. He looks older, but not as old as her, because apparently using the physician's cure warps time, as near as he can figure, because Asclepius had hinted at that, and time was really warped on Ogygia even though he only stopped for a few minutes. It's not an excuse, and he tells her so, but it helps soften the chasm in Piper's chest a little. He tells her that he's toured the world, with Calypso. He tells her he's sorry he stayed away—it was a mistake.

"We went our separate ways," he says finally. "I left her in Turkey, the closest thing she has to her birthplace. It wasn't… it wasn't real. I made it out to be something more than it was. I didn't even know her, really. It just took a few years to figure that out."

And it helps her to know that. The trouble is telling everyone else. Piper never admits that she knew all along, because it's better that way. It wouldn't lead to anything conducive. There is shock and tears and reunions and it feels like healing to watch. She's glad her friends won't have strings stretching across half the world. Glad they're all back in one piece, finally. Glad they are whole.

But the event is cataclysmic, of course, and disrupts Piper's life tremendously. Because now they don't have to be split up anymore. Now they can meet up without having to see the gaping hole where the seventh person should be. Now they can all be together, and so they all _want_ to be together. And that's nice, to an extent, except that it means that Jason is around now, too.

It's strange and a little surreal, and she's not quite sure how to handle it. They need to learn how to inhabit the same space again, in a different way than before. He looks good—great, even, mature and handsome and healthy.

"It's been a long time," he says quietly, when she finally decides that she can't avoid it any longer and goes to meet him at the Big House. They aren't alone, but there's enough space between them and everyone else that they might as well be.

"It has," she agrees, bobbing her head. And it's awkward and it hurts still, but it's a dull throb for what might have been rather than the sharpness of a raw, fresh wound, and Piper is certain that she can deal with this.

Eventually it comes to an end, because the seven of them aren't as free as they used to be—Piper has school and Percy and Annabeth have work and Frank has to get back to help Reyna out. And Hazel still has her whole life to plan out, and the world to see—she keeps in touch with all of them still, but Hazel doesn't want to spend her life confined to a camp; she needs to go, to travel, to see.

Leo stays at camp because he needs to get his feet back under him and figure out what the hell he's doing, and to Piper's surprise, Jason stays around, too. And, as though she's being pulled by an invisible force, Piper finds herself at Camp Half-Blood a lot more often now. She brings her homework and holes up in Chiron's office. It's nice to be a part of things, and to have people around when she needs to take a five minute break to prevent her brain from frying.

One day, Jason walks in. Piper can tell even before she looks up, from the sound of his footsteps and the familiar feeling of her nerve endings buzzing, as cliché as it is, even after all these years.

"Oh, sorry," he says quickly. "I just wanted to use the phone."

Piper shrugs. "Go ahead. I wasn't getting much done anyway." It's a lie, but a little white one.

Instead of using the phone, Jason pauses, pursing his lips. "I heard you were in med school."

"You heard correctly," Piper sighs, closing her books and shoving them aside, because she's not getting anything more done, she can just tell. "Psychiatry, specifically."

His smile is fond and a little nostalgic, and it makes Piper wish for when things were simpler, when there wasn't so many years of space in between them. "You'll be great at that."

"That was the general idea," Piper says, shrugging. "I want to learn how to help people better. Demigods, specifically."

"That's so awesome, Piper," he says seriously.

She blushes at the phrase, even though he's far from the first person to express the sentiment.

"It started as wanting to give back. You save the world and then it's like, now what? I just wanted to feel like I was making a difference. And then I realized that I loved it." Wanting to stop talking about herself so much, she hurriedly redirects. "And you know, I'm not the only one. Annabeth started production of New Athens this year, and it looks like Leo will be staying around to help build it. And Reyna and Frank, leading the camp. And Percy, scouting for new demigods. And you. Making sure the gods get recognized this time, and it doesn't happen all over again."

"Yeah," Jason agrees, shuffling a little bashfully. It makes Piper's heart ache.

The silence that follows is awkward, but dammit, Piper has not come this far to let the conversation end this way.

"How've you been?" she asks softly.

"Oh," he says, and Piper knows the feeling—how to put so much emotion, so many years into a few short sentences? "Um, good. You know, generally speaking."

"What about… with Leo?"

He blows out a breath. "That's… more complicated."

"Tell me about it," she says wryly. They share a smile, and it gives her hope—perhaps they're not so different, after all.

Jason sobers, seemingly collecting himself. "You know, I spent a long time feeling like I had to earn it."

"I know," she whispers. His eyes flash up to meet hers gratefully, and he continues a little bit bolder.

"I was raised to believe in duty. Sacrifice. That's… it's all I know. If someone gave their life for the betterment of the world, then you were supposed to respect that by continuing their legacy, and making sure their death counted. But I never realized… the grieving part. Wondering what the Underworld was like, and if they were watching, wishing you could have prevented it, and missing them, from the big things like going to college and the small things like having no one to understand an inside joke."

"You didn't know how to deal with it," Piper sums up softly.

He shakes his head. "Duty. Sacrifice. That makes sense to me. I understood that it was necessary, and why it had to happen. But I didn't realize how irrational I could be, how much I wished I could go back and change it, for my own selfish reasons, even though I knew that it was impossible to change or reverse. So I just tried not to think about it. I thought maybe if I didn't acknowledge it, it would go away."

"It's okay," she whispers. "Grief does funny things to people… and relationships."

He looks her squarely in the eyes again, and this time, she sees regret. "Either way, I'm sorry. It was wrong of me to expect you to leave camp so soon—or even at all. It was wrong of me to ask you for things that you couldn't give, and try to make you move on before you were ready."

Piper's chest suddenly feels very tight.

"Thank you. I appreciate that. But it wasn't all your fault," she says carefully. "I was afraid you would leave me behind. I grew up getting left, and so I tried to hold you in place. And I shouldn't have."

Jason nods and looks away. Piper bites her lip, hoping—not for anything in particular, just— _hoping._

"Well," he says eventually. "I'll let you get back to your studying. My call really wasn't that important anyway."

Piper deflates a little bit, but she bids him goodbye as he closes the door, flashing a last, lingering smile at her.

—

Piper has classes on most days, so she heads back to her apartment for the rest of the week. She's a bit unsure of the decision, but she doesn't really have a choice, since she can't afford to miss class. Her professors keep her busy, so she doesn't have much time to think about how Jason is currently at Camp Half-Blood and Piper is not there with him, although she does find the thought crossing her mind several dozen times a day. He's still there the next weekend, though.

"How are you?" he asks, when she comes through the Big House door with an armful of textbooks and a backpack in tow. She smiles and tells him about her week, and it's so nice to have a simple, every day conversation together that it almost feels like he'd never left in the first place.

They fall into a routine—Jason stays for a month, and then two months. And every weekend Piper stops by, and they learn how to be together without it hurting. At least—most of the time, anyway.

One day, he says quietly, "It made sense. It's better this way."

She remembers when Hazel had said the same thing about her and Frank, and for the first time, wonders if their breakup had given Jason the idea for their own. Piper can't even remember how that had come up in the first place, but the words stick with her all throughout that next week, chasing themselves in circles. It's better this way. It makes sense. And it's not that she doesn't agree—it's just that it bothers her, and she can't quite put her finger on _why._

In the third month, Jason tells her that he should be getting back to Camp Jupiter, to check on things.

"Of course," Piper says, even as bile rises in the back of her throat. He tells her he'll be back again soon, since now that he's graduated, he makes his schedule himself. "Okay," she says, through numb lips.

She cries the whole drive home, because they are so close to being where she wants them to be, but not quite there yet. The next weekend, she doesn't bother going to camp.

—

Piper doesn't see Jason again for another month. He doesn't notify her that he's coming back, although she wishes he would have. She just knows, on an intrinsic level.

He hugs her hello this time, and it's all Piper can do not to give in then and there. It's easy, after that. Piper looks forward to her weekends even more than usual. She has a harder time finishing her homework, but she's willing to accept the hit.

"I missed you, Pipes," he says one day, on the tail end of laughing about something stupid that probably wasn't even that funny; it's just nice to be laughing again.

"I missed you, too," she says honestly. She doesn't know if he's talking about in the last month, or in the last few years, or both. She just means in general—she missed him being a part of her life.

Sometimes she'll catch him doing something, like drumming his fingers like he does when he's in thought, or complimenting her on how diligent she is about her homework, or teasing Leo, and she almost says, _I love you, you know—I've loved you all along, and I never stopped._ The words jam in her throat, but the longer she waits the more it builds, and one day she's sure they'll come tumbling out.

One night after she passes out on top of her books, she wakes up in the bed in the Big House that she's sort of inadvertently claimed at her own, tucked under the blankets and everything. He slips her a Twix under the office door another day, because he knows they're her favorite, and Piper spends about ten minutes grinning stupidly at it. And one night, he wakes her up at some ungodly hour of the morning, excitedly jabbering about something that Piper is too groggy to discern. He tugs on her arm until she stumbles outside, and follows his pointing finger with her eyes.

"Meteors," he says, breathing in wonder. There are dozens of them, hundreds of them, darting across the sky like shooting stars, and Piper forgets her sleepiness. For a while, they just stand side by side, Piper barefoot in the dewy grass and shivering in her sleep shorts, watching them streak across the sky.

"Aren't they beautiful?" Jason whispers reverently, causing Piper to look at him.

She almost kisses him; she nearly can't stand the effort of holding herself back. She thinks about that night on the roof of Cabin One, when the two of them were an _us_ and everything between them made sense, and aches for it, and she thinks about the earliest days, of fake visions and Mist, on the roof of the Wilderness School. Jason must feel it too, because slowly, his eyes trail down to meet hers. For a moment, they're suspended. Piper waits for it to tip, for him to say something, or do something. Instead, he drops his eyes and clears his throat.

"It'll be going until four in the morning," he says quietly. And then, softly, and almost unbearably sweetly, "You should go back to sleep. I'd hate to see you burn yourself out."

"Yeah," Piper agrees, cheeks hot and eyes stinging. "Yeah. Goodnight. Thanks for showing me."

There are many more _almosts,_ after that—so many, Piper can't even keep track. But she never quite brings herself to spit it out or just grab him already, and he never makes the first move. She thinks about the false memory at the Wilderness School, all those years ago. It's fuzzy and faded now, rooted in unreality. But gods, she wants another moment like that one. She wishes it could be that simple again. And sometimes she's so sure that it's going to happen that she can feel her body humming with anticipation. Sometimes she's so certain he's going to make a move, and it causes her toes to curl and her fists to clench. So far, the moment always passes, but Piper can tell it's getting closer, that the tension is building and it's going to break soon.

She feels the shift in her priorities, and each weekend, it gets harder to leave. She throws herself into school, trying her hardest not to think about what Jason is doing and who he is with, but it doesn't quite work. She misses him fervently, more than she has in the last few years combined.

The trouble is, it's hard to convert those feelings into actions. A now-or-never moment is one thing, but the steadiness and routine of seeing a person at the same time in the same setting every week makes it difficult for Piper to change the pace.

He keeps slipping her Twix when it looks like she's going to have a rough weekend. Sometimes he'll tug on one of her braids to get her attention, the same way he used to do almost ten years ago now. A few times, he stops in when it's nearing dawn the next morning, wordlessly taking her books away from her and shuffling her off to bed. Sometimes, she feels like the simple intimacy will make her explode on contact, but she's not ready to give it up, yet. She worries about throwing romance into the mix, and doesn't want to disrupt the fragile balance they have now.

Because as insecure as she is, she knows that there's still something. She knows he has feelings for her. She knows he wants her the same way she wants him, even if it did make sense for them to break up. She's not reading into it. So why won't he give up the act? Why won't _she?_

Finally, she makes up her mind: if he doesn't do it, then she will.

Which just makes it all that much worse when Jason tells her he's leaving again.

—

She feels like she's been slapped in the face with a wet sponge. "Oh," she says, not knowing how else to respond. Is it possible that he hasn't felt it, too? Or has he felt it, and is just choosing to run away from it again? She could just ask why, if he's not on a schedule and doesn't owe anybody anything. But that's not what she wants. She wants him to stay because _he_ wants to stay; because she's here and he doesn't want to leave her behind.

Jason said he would be leaving before dawn on Sunday morning—he's an early riser, and the trip is more pleasant or whatever. Piper doesn't care. She leaves on Saturday night, because she can't spend Sunday at camp without him there, she just can't.

Alone in her apartment that night, she cries herself to sleep—because how can it be so simple, and so _hard?_ Why can't they take the final step? Why does he keep leaving, and why can't she ask him to stay?

—

That night, she has a dream. It's the first one in a while—she's been so busy lately that when she finally does sleep, she completely passes out, no dreams and no disturbances.

She's a child again, sitting on a stool in the kitchen of her first house, watching her father cook.

"Daddy," she asks seriously. "Tell me the truth. Are Grandpa Tom's stories true?"

"Which ones?" he asks, without turning around.

"You know," Piper says impatiently. "The magic ones! The ones about the gods and the spirits and the magic animals!"

Her father sighs and sets down the spoon, and faces her. "The stories are important. They're part of our heritage. They are used to teach us things."

"But are they _true,"_ she insists.

He purses his lips, then shakes his head. "No, they're not true. We can learn from them, and pass them down, but no, they aren't true."

"Oh," Piper says quietly. She remembers being crestfallen—it was the answer she had been expecting, but not the one she'd hoped for. "So you don't believe in gods? Or spirits, or magic animals?"

Her father sits down at the seat opposite her, and lowers his eyes to meet hers.

"I believe in us," he says quietly, but firmly. "I believe that everything happens for a reason, because _people_ do things for a reason. I believe our choices have consequences, and those consequences make more choices, and we just keep moving right along."

Piper quiets, considering. "So… where do all the stories come from?"

"I don't know about religion, Pipes," he replies. "But I know that my choices matter. And I know that if I believed in gods, I would always be looking for somebody to blame. Who knows? The stories might be real, or they might not. But I think the important part is: you're in control of your own destiny."

Her father fades away, and the dream is filled with the rumbling of a cavern and pitch darkness.

"But I don't… this doesn't make sense," Piper hears Annabeth say, panicked and confused.

"No," Piper hears herself answer. "Stop thinking about it. Just _feel."_

The rumbling fades, but the darkness doesn't go away.

"Some of them are permanent, and I think those people are fixed points in time, maybe soulmates, or maybe just people you're stuck with," Rachel says frankly. "But for the most part, I think you make them yourself, by choosing who you want in your life."

"You are my daughter, Piper," Aphrodite's voice whispers in her mind, sounding dimmer and further away the longer she speaks. "You see possibilities much more vividly than others. You see what could be. And it still might be—don't give up."

Piper wakes up with her heart racing, although it wasn't a nightmare. Before she even has the chance to realize what she's doing, she's tugging on her clothes and grabbing her keys, slamming the door behind her.

—

Piper drives like a maniac, knuckles white on the steering wheel, burning down the highway hoping that she'll make it before the sun starts edging over the horizon. She doesn't question it, for once—she just drives.

She does have plenty of time to think, though, and the whole way there, she wonders why it took her so long to figure it out. She thinks about her first string, with Annabeth—when she'd clung to her love for her friend to get her out of that horrible place, when she'd explained that love didn't always make sense, and that was okay. She thinks about Reyna, saying that Venus had nothing to do with it—that she was going to heal her own heart. She thinks about Hazel and Frank, making a decision together about how they wanted to be involved in each other's lives. She thinks about waking up with Percy's string on her finger and leaving her cabin past midnight to follow it, ignoring the harpies and the rules and the impulse to stay tucked away in bed, because that's what friends did for each other. She thinks about Thalia choosing to die for Annabeth, and she thinks about Percy choosing to let go of that ledge for Annabeth, and she thinks about Annabeth searching for Percy even when it didn't profit anything, and she thinks about Hazel defending Nico even though Nico had lied to her. She thinks about Reyna leaving everything she knew because she trusted Annabeth, and she thinks about Reyna proudly embracing Nico in front of everyone, forever claiming him as someone she wanted in her life. She thinks about Leo's string, bright on her finger, even after years passed with no word, because Piper had faith that he would come back to her eventually.

The answer has been there the whole time—she just couldn't see it before. She's even _known_ the answer all along, well enough to explain it to everyone else. And to think—the whole time, all she's needed to do is practice what she preaches.

—

Piper makes it just in time. The sun is beginning to rise, painting Half-Blood Hill in soft yellows. She sees Jason making his way down slowly, and quickly slams on the brakes and puts it in park, leaving it running while she gets out.

"Jason!" She shouts, sprinting up the hill as fast as she can.

He looks, understandably, startled. "Piper? What—"

"Don't go!" she bursts out, stopping a few feet in front of him, panting.

"Piper," he says, looking at her weirdly. "Is everything okay?"

Piper laughs breathlessly, and Jason frowns at her. "No," she says.

"What's wrong?"

"Don't go," she repeats, shaking her head. "I don't want you to go. I want you to stay."

"I… okay," he says, still looking baffled.

"Listen to me," she says, still laughing a bit, because here she is, in a pair of old sleep shorts and a tank top at five in the morning. It's ridiculous, and it feels good. Her chest is heaving and her hands are shaking and she's afraid, she's terrified, but the words come tumbling out as though it's the easiest thing in the world. "I want to be with you. I always have, I always did, and it never stopped, not really, not even after all these years that we spent apart, because I love you and I always have and I want you in my life, always."

Jason takes a step back, blinking. He looks a little overwhelmed, and she can't blame him, because she feels _very_ overwhelmed.

"I—it's not that simple, Piper," he says, looking pained. "We… it wasn't healthy, the last time."

"No," Piper agrees. "But it's different now, isn't it? There's nothing to stop us. It _can_ be that simple."

Jason rubs his hands over his face. "Piper," he starts. "I broke it off because our lives were going in different directions. That hasn't changed."

"You're not listening to me," she says, shaking her head. "I want _you._ I want _us."_

He doesn't say anything, and all Piper can hear is the sound of her own pulse in her ears.

"Jason," she says. "Just—just stop thinking about what makes _sense._ Stop thinking about what we should be doing, and just tell me: what do you _want?"_

"I _want_ us to stop hurting each other," he says quietly. "I don't want to see this become unhealthy again."

"We can _do_ that!" Piper insists. "We're older, and we've faced all our problems, and we've moved on."

"But what's to say that we don't fall back into it?" he counters. "We were holding each other back—why would that be any different now?"

"Because I _get it_ now," Piper breathes. "Because we didn't talk about it before—we didn't communicate, and I couldn't explain. Because before, I was so worried about how things were _supposed_ to be that I couldn't accept how they really _were,_ so we couldn't work through it because we never addressed the problem—don't you see?"

"Piper," he says again, but it sounds different this time—hopeful. "Do you honestly believe that? You really want to try again?"

"I really do," she confirms, nodding vigorously. "Not because it makes sense, and not because the prophecy dumped us together, and not because I'm afraid of being alone—because I _love_ you." She sucks in a breath. "And right now, I want you to stay, until we figure out how to be a couple again. Not because I'm afraid of being abandoned, or because I don't think you'll come back—because I want you to stay here, with me, and I want us to stay together."

This time, he starts laughing first, and Piper can't help but join. She's breathless and trembling, but she's more certain than she's been about anything in her life.

"I love you too," he whispers, bringing up a hand to cup her cheek. "I always have. Of course I'll stay."

"I also want you to kiss me," Piper adds. He laughs again, but obliges.

—

Sometime later, Piper notices a royal purple string tied between their fingers.

Funnily enough, she hadn't even noticed it appear, but she knows that it's not going to vanish again.

—


End file.
